Jobs: Man-cession gives way to he-covery

Because more than 4.8 million men lost their jobs between November 2007 and June 2009, the dates of the Great Recession. That's compared to 1.8 million women who lost their jobs in the same time period.

They've also called the economic recovery the "he-covery." That's because men have out gained women in hiring by a 3 to 1 margin. Hence the "he" instead of "re."

It's all according to a study released Tuesday by Chicago-based thinktank Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc. The report says that since July 2009, men have landed 74.5 percent of the 2.4 million net jobs created. That's about 1.8 million jobs for men and 617,000 jobs for women.

"Since more men lost jobs than women did, they are the ones that are going to be out there to find these new jobs, but the unemployment rate among men has fallen much more quickly than it has among women," said Colleen Madden, Challenger Gray's media relations manager.

Since the recession ended in June 2009, the unemployment rate among men has dropped from 9.7 percent to 8.4 percent. For women, it dropped from 8.5 percent to 8.0 percent.

The study says more men lost their jobs during the recession because male-dominated fields such as construction, manufacturing, and financial services downsized massively. Madden said an uptick in manufacturing and financial services jobs around the country has helped more men find work.

Madden said more women are going into healthcare, tech, information technology, and personal training.

"Women aren’t getting back to work as quickly. Some theories that we’ve kicked around are maybe women are just choosing not go back to work, staying home with families or perhaps their jobs weren’t as well paying to begin with, and they're choosing to stay out of the job market altogether," Madden said.

Still, women have the edge on men in job growth post June 2011. Since that time, women have been hired for 1.58 million jobs, while men have been tapped for 1.49 million jobs.